Things to do in Providence

Landmark · East Side, above downtown

The 'Mile of History' — an unbroken run of 18th and early 19th century houses climbing the hill behind Brown and RISD, one of the densest concentrations of original colonial architecture anywhere in America.

Local tip: Walk it from the north end downhill in late afternoon when the light hits the clapboard. The Providence Athenaeum halfway along is an 1836 subscription library that anyone can walk into, and the John Brown House at the southern end is the best single museum on the hill. Free, and it takes an hour.

Food · West of downtown, up Atwells Avenue

The historically Italian district — a mile of restaurants, salumerie, bakeries and cafés under the pinecone arch, centred on DePasquale Square and its fountain.

Local tip: The famous places on Atwells are fine; the reason to come is the shops. Buy from the salumeria, the bakery and the pasta maker rather than eating on the strip, and go on a weekday. The Sunday morning bakery queue is a local institution and moves faster than it looks.

Nature · South Providence

435 acres of 19th-century landscaped park with lakes, a Victorian botanical centre, a carousel, a planetarium and one of the oldest zoos in the United States.

Local tip: Enormous, free to walk, and much less known to newcomers than it should be — the boathouse, the Japanese garden and the temple of music are all worth finding. The zoo charges and is genuinely good; the park around it costs nothing and is where Providence actually spends its weekends.

Culture · Waterplace Park and the downtown river walk

Around a hundred braziers lit in the middle of the three rivers running through downtown, tended from boats, with music along the banks — an art installation the city has staged on summer and autumn evenings since 1994.

Local tip: Free, and the full lightings are the ones to catch rather than the partial ones — check the schedule. Come at dusk for the lighting itself rather than later, get on the river walk below street level, and eat on Federal Hill afterwards when the crowd thins.

Nature · The waterfront at the foot of College Hill

A green waterfront park where the Seekonk meets the bay, and the start of a 14-mile paved path running along the water all the way to Bristol.

Local tip: The bike path is the single best thing to own a bicycle for in Rhode Island — flat, separated from traffic and on the water for most of its length. Ride to Bristol for lunch and back; it is about three hours of easy pedalling and it does not feel like exercise.

Culture · Benefit Street, College Hill

A small 1838 Greek Revival subscription library with its original alcoves, busts and card catalogue, and one of the great reading rooms in New England.

Local tip: Almost nobody who has just moved here knows they can simply walk in, and they can. Edgar Allan Poe courted Sarah Helen Whitman among these shelves. Membership is cheap and the reading room is the best free place in the city to work on a February afternoon.